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[landlesslord]

Though dead, Guy sleeps. Though he sleeps far better than he used to in life, he is not untroubled by nightmares. The old familiar demons.

Somewhere between the realisation and decision that he would not be going back to sleep that night, brought him to the stables well before dawn, where he has been sitting with his back against the door of Marian's still unnamed stallion's stall.

The stallion has been taking little notice of Guy's reminiscences.

Comments

[landlesslord]

"Not at first," he admitted. "Later, I had some suspicions."

Her father had been the Sheriff at one time though.

"She's lived there before, things happened that I couldn't quite explain without Marian being able to escape..."

Guy shrugged.

"...but I was always a little blind when it came to Marian. Later, after other things happened, I knew."

After he found out that she was the Nightwatchman.

"Looking back...well. It's always clearer."

[ikissdhimbck]

It doesn't make a lick of difference, then. Looking back, things are always clearer. He did what he did with little excuse in Kate's mind.

"You regret it, then?"

Still, she has to ask.

"The things y'did to her?"

[landlesslord]

"Yes."

He sighed.

"If I had not come into her life, she would have..." Guy does not finish that particular sentence. He will not, unless Marian hears it first.

"I regret a lot of things, but most of all the things I did to her."

[ikissdhimbck]

She narrows her eyes.

He has a lot to answer for, as far as Kate's concerned. But remarks that trail off like that hardly lead where you expect them to, in her experience. It makes her wary.

"Y'should."

Her voice is quiet, still. Harsh. As unforgiving as the sun-baked desert to a new sprout.

"She deserved better."

[landlesslord]

Guy's jaw clenches at the tense of Kate's last words. The woman cannot know, but it still hits too close to home.

He is silent for a long while.

And then.

"Yes."

[ikissdhimbck]

Well, goddammit all to hell.

Kate was kind of looking forward to getting a few more shots in, but now he's gone and taken all the fun out of it.

She lets out a slow breath, lowering her angry eyes.

"You're from her future, then?"

[landlesslord]

He shrugged slightly. "As she is from my past."

Not that it really did much good, in the grand scheme of things.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Does she know?"

That he's here?

That he visits her stallion?

"That you're dead?"

[landlesslord]

"Yes," he answered both. Mostly. "Well."

Guy shifted from one foot to lean on the other.

"She knows that I am dead," he continued. "Though I suspect only because she has physical proof of that."

The memory-sensation of her hand pressed against his chest where his heart used to beat still burns with the fire and warmth of her vitality.

"The rest...I do not think she is convinced of."

He can't blame her though. They have never really believed each other's word. They have never really spoken much truth to each other.

[ikissdhimbck]

"Physical proof?"

Her anger is melting into wariness.

Lawmen are all the same. They get a taste for power, think they can do whatever they like, and have the gall to be surprised when folk don't take them at their word.

"What is it she needs convincin' of? That you're sorry?"

She scoffs.